So blue tongue lizard morphs have gone viral,
and rightly so! The new morphs and combinations
that have popped up over the last few seasons in the
relatively small Australian hobby have not only turned
heads here but also seriously got the attention of the
global reptile community. This has prompted a mad
rush of enthusiasts to find space in their collections for
the awesome, easy-to-keep ‘bluey’.
New morphs are guaranteed to catch the eye and
create a buzz amongst reptile keepers, which in turn
leads to growth and sustainability in what is a fragile
industry that is obviously important to all of us. So,
remembering that a wise man once said, ‘progress is
not a trip to complexity’, and that ultimately, ‘we can
only love what we can understand’, here I am with a
simple and up-to-date guide to blue-tongue morph
genetics – the crazy paint jobs that have dazzled us in
recent times.
There are currently seven proven blue-tongue morphs
(not counting combinations), and the whole process
kicked off nearly ten years ago, when Snake Ranch
(driven by John Weigel) brought us the albino Eastern
Blue-tongue. The founder animals came from the
Newcastle region and were proved to carry a straight-
forward recessive trait that works in the same manner
as albinism in many other species around the globe.
Next up came the unrivalled black melanistic blue-
tongue, which was found near Bondi, Sydney, by
Professor Rick Shine. This was proven to be a case of
incomplete dominance; the only real difference from
recessive being that the het form has an intermediate
phenotype, in this case somewhat darker than the
normal wild type. These unbelievable blueys were also
brought to us by Snake Ranch, via the initial breeding
work of Peter Harlow. To this day I receive double the
number of requests for black blueys than for any other
available morph.
Darwin was the source of the third blue-tongue morph,
with John Robert Coward introducing us to the ‘White’
Northern Blue-tongue. In fact, the correct name for
these animals is hotly debated, as although visually they
fall just short of being leucistic, they are way more than
simply hypomelanistic, with a complete lack of oranges
and yellows. The best examples appear pure white;
some have strong caramel banding and they may
exhibit black peppering as adults. This is something
totally different to albinism and melanism and is a
stunning addition to the blue-tongue morph stable. A
simple recessive gene is responsible, that works in
exactly the same way as albinism.
Fourth on the list are ‘Black Eyed Anery’ blue-tongues.
The anerythristic mutation is unable to produce red,
yellow and orange pigments, and these blueys can be
simply described as almost the opposite in appearance
to albinos, in that they are left with just black and white